Who remembers those Sunday mornings in the early 80’s? I certainly do. Waking up around 8am with that dread in the pit of my stomach.

It’s Sunday. My little brain would try to wish it away. Staring at the wall, the one with the poster of ABBA on it, I wondered if Agnetha would snuggle up beside me, and save me from the next three hours of shame and guilt. Maybe if I pretended to be asleep, curled up under my blankets, they might not notice me and forget to bring me to mass. No such luck.

In one hour, I’d be up and dressed, in my good clothes, ready to get thrown into the car for the three-minute drive down to St Annes Church. In 1979, St Annes church in Portmarnock was a rusty old tin church that was on the site where the new and shiny Lidl now stands. The old church was small and had an eerie chill throughout it. The smell of incense grew stronger at the front near the altar, where we always sat. I often gagged from inhaling the fumes and the cold air at the same time, and of course my childish cough would echo embarrassingly throughout the whole place, disturbing the choir as they practiced their hymns before mass began. No-one knew about Harry Potter back then, but I definitely had a premonition about an Invisible Cloak. Damn, JK Rowling beat me to it. I wanted to be magically swallowed up by these old wooden pews.

It was an internal battle I had from the moment I realized that I was different to the other girls. It was the confusion I felt from my legitimate enjoyment of going to mass, to then being faced with the fact that I couldn’t BE WHO I WAS BORN TO BE, and also pray to a God who forbade me to be who I was born to be.  I’m confusing myself even as I write. 

The old tin church was where I made my first confession – a petrifying moment. I’m sure it was for all of us!  (https://orladoherty.com/ille-gay-ly-homosexual-part-two/) I often wonder, as I write these blog posts, if I’m stirring up memories for my readers, and if they were also dealing with secrets and insecurities brought on by the glorious indoctrination of the Catholic Church!  I digress.

My ‘good clothes’ meant NO JEANS EVER. Not EVER. A skirt was preferable, tweed maybe, or if that was dirty, the corduroy one would do. But if I had to wear trousers, then they had to be smart. And a nice jumper. Plain of course, nothing fancy on it. Keep it simple. It was always cold in the church so a sensible jacket was a must. And nice shoes. No runners. We had to look respectable. You never know who’d see us. And we didn’t want anyone talking about us. God forbid anyone would talk about us.

The three-minute drive felt like an hour of deathly silence. Silence broken by my mam after about 30 seconds:

 “I wonder if Mrs O’Riordan will be in the choir today.  Did you hear about her husband? Cancer.”  

“Cancer”, my father would pretend to sound interested. “What sort of cancer?”

“Panocretic”, my mother said confidently.

“Panocretic?  You mean Pancreatic for God’s sake. That’s the kiss of death”.  I recall my father seemed to always know something about everything so I believed him. I decided in my head that Mr O’Riordan, the poor divil, would be dead by Christmas. 

“He’ll be missed at the butcher’s”, my mam ignored my dad’s correction.  “He’s been at that butcher shop for 30 years”.

“Good squash player though”, my dad confirmed. “I beat him once, last summer”. (I obvioiusly got my competitive streak from him).

“The poor kids though”, she gazed back at me.

“Jaysus, they’re not kids anymore”, he would get irritated so quickly.

“It’ll be a lovely funeral though won’t it?” she perked up. At least she’d have a good funeral to look forward to.

It was the longest three minutes of the entire day. Me in the back seat, listening to each of their one-way conversations, staring out at the rain as it cried softly down my window pane, praying with me that this bloody ordeal would end soon. 

Will I see my friends later? Will I be let out? God doesn’t love me anyway. How much longer before I can take off these good trousers and shoes and put on my runners?

And then my dad would curse about the fact that they should have left earlier, that there was no parking now, and if my mother had only been ready sooner, and stopped fustering* over where her handbag was. I often wonder if my mam used to do it on purpose. Just to annoy him. She was a professional fusterer. He used to go mad.

I believed everything my dad said. He was so intelligent. He never spoke very much, but when he did, everyone stopped and listened. He sometimes did readings at mass. Like today. We had to pay attention. His voice was so deep, yet quiet, low. It was scary at times. 

“This is the Word of the Lord” sounded like the end of the world as we knew it. And yet we’d still say “Thanks be to God” and bow our heads, waiting for him to return to his seat, his footsteps echoing throughout the whole place. His five second walk back to our pew felt like we were frozen in time for about a minute. And we were frozen. I should’ve worn my sensible jacket.

I absolutely love Christmas, I always have. So as I entered my teenage years in the later 80’s, I actually loved going to mass on Christmas Eve. Not that I loved going to mass per se, but I loved what came afterwards. It normally started around 10:30 pm so that it’d be over at midnight, which was technically Christmas Day, and that meant we could each open one gift from under the tree. That was our family tradition.

I remember one particular year, just before mass, I was in Malahide, at Gibneys Pub with my friends, still pretending I was straight and fancied John, the boy I’d go to the Debs** with. I had consumed probably 3 or 4 pints of Carlsberg, then jumped on the bus for the short trip back to St. Annes church. I used to stand at the back of the church, just inside the door, close enough to hear what the priest was saying, in case my parents asked me later. There’d be loads of us ‘delinquents’ lined up at the back of the church, the older locals were there, dressed in their very best Christmas attire, giving us dirty looks. They knew exactly where we’d been.

Being a catholic was my second indoctrination, after that of ABBA from when I was three years old. And in a way, it prepared me for being on stage later in life, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. In fact, my very first time on a stage was at my first holy communion where I was asked to do sign language of the ‘Our Father’ in front of the whole congregation because one of the girls in my class had surgery on her eye and had missed all the practice sessions, so she needed to watch someone doing it and follow along (I still know it by the way).

The only other time I got to perform was when I played a leper in the school play at Christmas. My brother was the voice of God. He was never seen, only heard, talking loudly to Moses or someone equally important. And then there was me, the leper, begging to be cured by Jesus. I think there’s a peculiar message in there…my brother, the mysterious voice hiding behind the curtain who no-one really knew, and me baring every ounce of sin and sickness in my soul for the world to see, not hiding anything… my, how things haven’t changed. For either of us.

I continue to have an on-going battle with religion. It amazes me how I can go into any catholic church in the world these days, having not been to mass in over 20 years, and I can still recite every word. Even the prayers in Irish! It all began with the rosary in our kitchen in 1979. From an early age it was a daily gathering with Aunty Hannah, my cousin Maria, Nana Byrne and mam. The rosary was said using our new plastic beads from Lourdes, the same ones I’d keep under my pillow at night, and often clung to in desperation when the bouts of guilt overcame me.

But the gift of having learned the Irish language (and saying our prayers in it) remains with us, and we still laugh about it. We don’t remember much at all, but we do try. Just yesterday, I was with my cousin Maria (the same one from that kitchen in 1979 – she’s now almost 46 and severely peri-menopausal). We were watching the semi final of the All Ireland GAA Championship on TG4, the Irish TV channel that commentates in Irish. Dublin and Mayo were playing in an historical match, and we were trying to show off to her youngest, by speaking Irish to each other as the commentators shouted excitedly at every Mayo point scored in over-time. This clever 9-year-old goes to an all-Irish school, meaning he is taught everything as Gaelige (In Irish), so he can hold a full conversation with any of these commentators. We had no idea what they were saying, but that didn’t matter. We could make it up. Her Scottish husband would never know.

‘Is maith liom an milsean’ (I like the sweets) Maria confidently announced. 

‘Ta an madra sna scamaill’ (The dog is in the clouds), I replied without hesitation.

‘Suigh sios anois agus dun do bheal’ (Sit down now and shut your mouth), Maria lamented.

‘Is maith liom bainne agus uisce’ (I like milk and water), I was getting desperate now.

‘Mar ta na capaill ag rith suas na staighre’ (because the horses are running up the stairs), her youngest is now very confused, yet strangely impressed.

‘Se do bheatha mhuire’ (Hail Mary full of grace….).

NO! STOP!  It always comes back to the rosary.  Everything seems to come back to the catholic church.  Sure isn’t it gas? I’d have nothing to write about if it weren’t for them!

It’s funny how my memory of Mass stirs up so much energy within me. How my stomach moves to the rhythm of the inescapable flashbacks. Some smiles, some sourness, some inappropriate giggles at funerals, some winks at the boy from down the street, some solemn prayer. I close my eyes and I remember. I remember the smells, the sounds. The incense, the bells. The fragrance. The Silence. I loved it. I hated it. It was a strangely accepted ritual that brought us together, yet pushed us apart. And now some 40 years later, it’s probably one of the very few things that would bring us all together again. A forced but welcome reunion in these ‘End of Covid’ days.

P.S. Well done Mayo. It’s been 2540 days since Dublin have been beaten. It’s never easy to break into a solid empire like this. It took me 7665 days to come out to my parents, so I’d say you’re doing pretty well! I’ll be supporting you in the final.

*Fustering – an Irish expression for someone who faffs about, wastes time doing nothing seemingly

**Debs – end of High School dance